Pussycat Dolls

It wasn’t the train wreck that some had predicted. And it wasn’t the victory march that others had longed to see.

In the end, Britney Spears’ concert at Arco Arena in Sacramento on Saturday night – her first of three Northern California dates this month – fell somewhere between the two extremes.

On the Brit-Brit scale, “The Circus Starring Britney Spears 2009 Tour” was better than the star’s last major trek, 2004’s “The Onyx Hotel,” but below her best tours, including 2000’s “Oops . . . I Did It Again” and 2002’s “Dream Within a Dream” – the latter being one of the best pure pop spectacles that this critic has ever seen. Longtime fans can judge for themselves when the “Circus” returns to town tonight (Sunday) at the HP Pavilion in San Jose and on April 22, for a date at Oracle Arena in Oakland. Continue Reading →